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June Entry: Assassin's Lair

Not that I need to participate in nor have time for another challenge, the subject intrigues me. Plus, I seldom do hand-drawn encounter scale maps, I usually do that for regional maps. So as an experiment, I am doing a detailed lair of an assassin, all hand-drawn.

Life as a man-slayer is both lonely and secretive, especially for those who worship, Cerene, the God of Death. He follows no guild and is always in need of safe house to keep aside the tools of the trade and a place to escape when the authorities are too close.

The Amulet of Cerene is a pendant of thirteen jewels set in a curious pattern that actually depicts the layout of the Assassin's Lair itself. At the center is a ruby that represents the entry/exit portal to the actual lair, as life begins and ends in blood. Four square bloodstones surround that represent the halls to the outer chambers and manifests greater arcane enhancement to the Amulet itself. (Darkovian bloodstones of the CWBP).

Black diamonds represent the chambers beyond the ruby entry stone.

The amulet hangs from a gold chain worn around the assassin's neck. Bringing one's right hand to enclose the amulet, an activation word is uttered silently and one is immediately transported to the lair itself, disappearing from whereever one is, to an extra dimensional space located within the solid rock of a mountain itself.

If the radiance of a thousand suns was to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One...I am become Death, the Shatterer of worlds.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer (father of the atom bomb) alluding to The Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 11, Verse 32)

Quick update

Thanks, Lich!

OK, one quick update before I call it a night for this project...

I added the beginning of the dojo training chamber on the opposite side from the Chapel of Cerene. At the center I placed the Entry/Exit portal. Oh and changed the title font to the same as the Amulet of Cerene (its called Warlock).

Very cool. Looking forward to the finished product. The only other comment I have is that I kind of liked the other font better. Warlock seems a little too "clean" compared to the rest of the hand drawn map.

Last update until tomorrow!

Both of you have good points on which is the best font. For now I'm sticking with Warlock, instead of "Elric" the other font, which is difficult to read. I might review this at the end and make a final decision then.

I got stuck on what to do for a training room, lots of possibilities like a combat dummy or punching block seemed less obvious from a topdown perspective. So I decided to work on the border, legend, room description.

Then it dawned on my that this is a highly magic strong environment, so why not an Illusionary Monk Combatant. A sometimes sparring partner, or practice for taking down a "mark". Notice that he's slightly translucent to give that "illusionary" effect.

I'll also place a weapons rack, archery target on the far left wall of the training dojo, to finish that off.

Oh, and in the Chapel, those two round things are incense decanter stone bowls. I opted not to place any "incense smoke" as I thought it would detract from clear view of the Chapel.

Before the end, I plan to place some illustrations to fill the dead spaces. An assassin's dagger between the two text blocks and a coiled garrote in the top left corner.

That's it for now. The room list should show what's coming up, and the room number guide is in the bottom left corner. Also threw in a scale describing chamber size, so one could easily use the floor stones as a grid, or easily convert to VTT without an obvious grid.